After nearly 3,000 years, does the “Iliad” really need translating again?

BLOODY but beautiful, is there a greater poem than the “Iliad”? Depicting a few weeks in the final year of the Greek siege of Troy, Homer’s epic glitters with bronze spears and the blazing sun. Rich with his famous similes and repeated expressions, it describes a war in which men can pause from fighting in order to speak of their family lineage in terms of “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity”; in which Gods can yank warriors back by their hair or cover them in a cloud of mist if it is not yet their turn to die. It is both brutally realistic (once you have heard how Phereclus died by a spear through his right buttock into his bladder, you won’t forget it) and belonging to another world—as the Greek epithet for Homer, theois aoidos or “divine singer” suggests. It is no wonder that the “Iliad” is a text that people constantly turn back to, and continually translate. . .

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Alexander: How Great?

In 51 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had reluctantly left his desk in Rome to become military governor of the province of Cilicia in southern Turkey, scored a minor victory against some local insurgents. As we know from his surviving letters, he was conscious that he was treading in the footsteps of a famous predecessor: “For a few days,” he wrote to his friend Atticus, “we were encamped in exactly the same place that Alexander occupied when he was fighting Darius at Issus”—hastily conceding that Alexander was in fact “a rather better general that you or I.” . . .

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Libyans battle to protect ancient treasures from looting

Walking along the tree-lined gravel track towards one of the Roman Empire's greatest architectural legacies, little can prepare you for what you are about to experience.
As you emerge from the shade of the tall poplars the towering stone edifice that guards Leptis Magna's approaches appears. It is simultaneously stunning and evocative. Like a blow to the sternum, it quickens the heart.
Septimus Severus's gate, a tribute to the Roman emperor responsible for much of what remains today, stands astride great Roman roadways. . .

Severus, like the country's most recent modern day ruler Moammar Gadhafi, spent lavishly on his hometown transforming it reputedly into the third greatest city in Africa, rivaling Carthage and Alexandria.

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Stone Age painting kits found in cave

The oldest known painting kits, used 100,000 years ago in the stone age, have been unearthed in a cave in South Africa.
Two sets of implements for preparing red and yellow ochres to decorate animal skins, body parts or perhaps cave walls were excavated at the Blombos cave on the Southern Cape near the Indian Ocean.

Alice Oswald: haunted by Homer

Alice Oswald thinks The Iliad has been turned into a public school poem that glamorises war. So she has rewritten it – with the footsoldiers as heroes. The poet explains herself to Sarah Crown . . .

Pompeii shows its true colours

When word spread to Britain of the sensational discovery of the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century, "Pompeiian red" became the favoured colour for smart dining-rooms – as it remains today.

But, it seems, it may be time to get out the paint chart. According to new research presented to Sapienza University in Rome last week, large swaths of the vivid "Pompeiian red" frescoes in the town actually began life as yellow – and were turned red by the gases emitted from Vesuvius as it erupted in AD 79.

Experts stress conservation at Ur

See this interesting blog on Minoan Culture

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave

A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.
A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

. . . a film that takes us on an eerie descent into an ancient cave to discover something strange, awe-inspiring and scary … Werner Herzog.This director has scored another remarkable success with this documentary, using 3D to accentuate the massive, sculptural forms revealed to his camera. He and a minimal crew were allowed into the extraordinary Chauvet cave in the south of France, named after Jean-Marie Chauvet, the explorer who in 1994 made a Tutankhamun-level discovery: hundreds of pictures of animals drawn with flair, sophistication and detail by Neanderthal (sic) man around 32,000 years ago.

Stone tools 'demand new American story'

The long-held theory of how humans first populated the Americas may have been well and truly broken.

Visit The Museum of Cycladic art in Athens Online

Battle of Algiers

You are warmly invited to a screening of the Classic 1966 'Battle of Algiers' in Arts Major at 19h00 this evening Wed 23rd March. This is a small celebration of the struggle for Human Rights and life with dignity and specifically a gesture of solidarity with the people of Libya, all the people of North Africa and the Middle East and anywhere people bear the load of tyrannies, be they unjust economic structures, military dictatorship or other forms of oppression. This free screening is a special collaborative event of the International Office, Humanities Faculty and the Institute of Social & Economic Research. Come at 19h00 for 19h30 and enjoy some camaraderie and Halaal snacks before the film. The visiting Iranian academic Elaheh Rostami-Povey and Richard Pithouse of the Politics Department will say a few words of introduction.

We look forward to seeing you this evening at 19h00.

Primitive Humans Conquered Sea, Surprising Finds Suggest

Surprisingly old hand axes have been found on the Greek island of Crete, at center in this composite of satellite images.

Welcome new and returning students of 2011

 Classics at Rhodes warmly welcomes students of 2011.

We look forward to meeting each of you and setting off on the adventure of the Ancient World together with you.

Please come and see us in the department any time:
 Rooms 11-13
John Jackson
j.jackson@ru.ac.za
Daniel Malamis
d.malamis@ru.ac.za
David van Schoor
d.vanschoor@ru.acza

Wondering what you could do with Classics? Click on the title of this post to find excellent resources on careers open to Classics Majors.

Stone tools discovered in Arabia force archaeologists to rethink human history

The tools found in southern Arabia date from 125,000 years ago – 55,000 years before humans were thought to have left Africa